Infrared Sauna

An infrared sauna is usually a wooden box, or small wooden room, containing several infrared heaters. In a warm environment, an infrared sauna could be open air and still heat the users in the same manner, since the heaters don't rely on the air being hot, but only hot enough such that the body doesn't cool down without sweating. All the same, normally the units are contained in a room, allowing the air to heat and in effect simulating the feel of a traditional sauna. In other words, the sauna box creates the atmosphere of the sauna while the heaters provide the actual infrared therapy.

In an infrared sauna, the infrared heater produces radiant energy, which is the same as the heat from the sun, only without the harmful ultraviolet rays. Most of these heaters draw on technology developed in 1965 by Dr. Tadashi Ishikawa, a member of the Research and Development Department of Fuji Medical.

Traditional saunas, also called rock saunas or Finnish Saunas, use various types of heaters to warm the air and stones in a room. The room's walls can be logs or some other material lined with wood. Stones placed over the heat source attain a high temperature. In its primitive form the stones are heated by wood without a chimney. The fire dies and the smoke exits by the door. Heat is maintained by the stones. Stones are usually peridotite as they are heat stable. Modern Finnish saunas have thermostatically controlled electric stoves or wood stoves with chimneys.

In a traditional sauna the air temperature typically runs between 169 to 190 °F (76 to 88 °C), though temperatures over 200 °F (93 °C) are sometimes encountered. The hot air causes the body to heat up, and eventually results in a sweat. Water is thrown on the stones to achieve a "steam shock". Some devotees enhance the experience by mixing vodka etc in the water. This produces a quick "high". Some add herbs or oil like eucalyptus. Traditionally, ones skin is beaten with a bunch of birch twigs. When the heat becomes intolerable one cools down under a cold shower or, as in Finland, by jumping into a frozen lake, or perhaps, most delicately, one rolls in powdery snow. Then one repeats the process to satisfaction. Although potentially unsafe, alcoholic drinks often accompany the sauna.

An infrared sauna uses a variety of heater types from older technology steel incoloy rods and ceramics to newer carbon heaters that creates infrared waves that heat your body directly, instead of just by the air. The temperature in them is much cooler, at around 110 to 140 °F (43 to 54 °C). The amount of sweat that results from each is comparable, though many people report that the lower temperatures in an infrared sauna allow the user to stay inside longer, resulting in longer sauna sessions and therefore more overall sweating.